Owned by a media consortium and run by a board of executives, the Leafs enjoy the advantages of a seemingly endless budget. In a salary cap system designed to curb precisely that advantage, however, the bottomless pit of money is a double-edged sword. It can translate quickly into bloat, and has.

Between burying defenseman John-Michael Liles, buying out Colby Armstrong and Darcy Tucker and retaining salary on Matt Frattin and Ben Scrivens in a trade with the Los Angeles Kings, the Maple Leafs are carrying over $6 million in dead cap space entering this season.

In the other corner, clad in black, red and white, are the budget-conscious Ottawa Senators. Senators ownership could be seen this summer crying poor while attempting to procure approval for the construction of a casino. That was while they were engaged in a bitter tit-for-tat with former captain Daniel Alfredsson.

The Senators have rigorously stuck to an internal cap and will enter the season with the fourth lowest payroll in the league, ahead of only the rebuilding Flames and franchises owned by the Kroenkes (Colorado Avalanche) and Charles Wang (New York Islanders).

The difference between the franchises go beyond payroll, though; they've got divergent approaches and philosophies for competing in the National Hockey League.

For the Senators, it’s all about controlling the game. Coach Paul MacLean is a former Red Wings assistant, a disciple of the school of puck possession, and has cited shot attempts in discussing his team’s performance. Last season, the Senators spent the majority of their games in the opposition’s end, which is by design.

When the Senators lost two first-line forwards in Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek, starting goaltender Craig Anderson and best overall player Erik Karlsson to injury last season, they limped on. The club employed a conservative game plan and dominated the puck with lesser players. While they benefited from the percentages—especially in goal, where they led the league in even-strength save percentage—they also played them, and at season's end they were a playoff team.

“We earn all of our goals,” Senators defenseman Jared Cowen explained a preseason game in Toronto. “When we play our game, it’s just a matter of time before we get one, lucky or not.”

Randy Carlyle told reporters to expect that to change, that the club would emphasize puck possession this season. Maybe that's a genuine concern for the organization, but its moves this summer suggest something else entirely.

If you want to emphasize puck possession, you don't buy out Mikhail Grabovski and re-up with Tyler Bozak. You don't replace Bozak with Dave Bolland. And you certainly don't relegate a blue-chip puck-mover to the press box, as Carlyle did with Jake Gardiner last season.

Although a club that values puck possession might sign a guy like David Clarkson, the fact remains that Toronto's slew of offseason renovations don't really suggest an investment in controlling play. Rather, this seems like a team built to rough up opponents, limit shots from within home-plate, rely on excellent goaltending and take advantage of opponent's mistakes with opportunistic goals against the grain.

If all goes to plan this season, the Leafs will resemble the Italian international football club of the late ’90s, and not just because of the blue sweaters.

“That's our bread and butter: our speed in transition,” said Maple Leafs forward Nazem Kadri this preseason. “We have to utilize it to the best of our ability.”

In Kadri, Phil Kessel, Joffrey Lupul, James Van Riemsdyk and free-agent acquisition Mason Raymond, the Maple Leafs have a stable of quick forwards, all of whom are well suited to producing offense on the rush. As a team, the Leafs have shot an elevated percentage at even-strength for several years in a row.

In Dion Phaneuf, Cody Franson and Gardiner, the Maple Leafs have three extremely capable offensive defensemen. If you were going to build a team to play a counter-attacking system, that’s the sort of personnel you’d want to employ.

“It’s all the ones: one block, one rebound, one bounce,” Carlyle said during the playoffs. “It’s all the ones that go against you.” If you want to understand why the Carlyle-era Maple Leafs prefer a Bolland or a Bozak over a Grabovski; or a Mark Fraser over a Gardiner—that might be the key principle: “It’s all the ones.”

It’s obvious from watching them play that the Leafs look to limit mistakes, and to capitalize on those made by their opponents. It’s obvious to their opponents too. “We had the puck and had pressure and they wait for our mistakes, and then they get rushes and good opportunities,” Senators goaltender Robin Lehner said after a preseason game in which the Senators outshot Toronto 38-20 until the final four minutes of the contest.

“Look at last year, this is how the Leafs play against us,” Lehner continued. “That's their game and it's very effective sometimes."

It’s effective to a point. Data suggests that the Maple Leafs were one of the better counter-attacking teams, at least in terms of scoring goals following defensive zone face-offs, in recent years. But it’s a strategy that only works when Toronto’s goaltenders are stopping pucks. Lots of pucks.

Ben Scrivens and James Reimer certainly managed that last season, and with the offseason trade for Jonathan Bernier, Toronto upgraded in goal (albeit probably not by as much as some seem to think).

In their effort to become just the second significantly negative puck possession team to make the postseason two years in a row since behindthenet.ca started compiling shot data in 2007, Reimer and Bernier will have to be Toronto’s trump card. Otherwise this could all go tumbling down.

That the Maple Leafs' season may hinge on goaltending hardly makes their situation unique. Rather it’s the eschewal of the concept of “more” in favor of “the ones” that strikes one as stubbornly singular. The 2013-14 Maple Leafs are betting on some old-school precepts in a league that is getting increasingly competitive, young and analytical.

The Senators, meanwhile, are content with more.

After playing well over their heads a season ago, most of the Senators big guns are back and healthy. Spezza is still battling groin soreness but will be in the opening night lineup. Michalek underwent platelet-rich plasma therapy to repair his knee this summer. Karlsson may never be the same, but has looked “similar” in preseason action.

“(Having those guys back) will mean a lot if we don’t let up,” said Cowen. “Hopefully everyone keeps it up and doesn't let down just because guys are back in the lineup. We're a better team than we were last year and if we play with as much intensity as we did last year, we'll be good."